Falling for Him 3 (Rachel and Peter in Love) Read online

  Copyright Notice and Disclaimer

  Falling for Him 3

  By Jessica Gray

  Copyright © 2014 Jessica Gray

  Kindle Edition

  This book is copyrighted and protected by copyright laws.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission from the author.

  All characters, names, and places in this book exist only within the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or locations is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 1

  Peter climbed from the back of the police cruiser, hating the fact that there were already several news vans, and a gathering crowd of people standing around on the street.

  “Sir, if you’ll follow me?” Detective Crimshaw directed.

  “Mr. Shaw! Mr. Shaw! Can we have a statement..”

  “Mr. Shaw, why is your ex-girlfriend threatening to jump off the building?”

  The media reporters threw question after question towards him, but Peter ignored them all. He focused was on the action taking place on the roof of the building.

  “Mr. Shaw, please follow me.” Detective Crimshaw touched his arm and nodded his head towards the building’s entrance.

  Peter stood for another minute and then looked up. Lara, what in the hell is going through your mind?

  Lara Bishop, his ex-girlfriend and thorn in his side, stood on the outside ledge that ran around the top of the building. There were small cutouts in the ledge and police officers were stationed on the inside of those openings on either side of her. Peter did a quick scan of the floors and cringed when he realized she was at least fifteen stories up. The ledge looked to be several feet wide, and Lara currently leaned against the building. But it would only take a few steps and she would fall to a certain death.

  Peter looked to her left and saw an officer leaning out that cutout, trying to talk her back inside the protective wall of the building’s roof. It was hard to see exactly what took place up there, but the negative shake of her head was very clear.

  “Sir?”

  Peter turned his attention to the police detective who had shown up only half an hour before to retrieve him from Rachel’s. It was amazing how fast they got here. If the situation weren’t that severe, he would actually have enjoyed the blue light driving. He’d never been in a police car before and marveled at the racy yet cautions driving style.

  He hoped Rachel understood why he’d had to leave. Lara didn’t issue idle threats, and if she was threatening to jump – she meant it.

  Peter knew that he would never be able to live with the feeling of guilt if she jumped to her death; not if there was something he could have done to prevent it. He needed to at least try!

  When following the uniformed officer into the building, he saw a number of other officers stationed at the various entrances. They assisted other occupants of the building out the side doors and away from the area below where Lara stood.

  The ambulance and fire crews currently set up what looked like a large inflatable mattress. It still had quite a while to go before it would be inflated enough to break a person’s fall. Lara don’t do anything stupid! He repeated the thought like a litany in his mind as he followed the detective inside the building.

  Once in the elevator, the officer gave him a run down on the situation, as they knew it. “She’s been up there since early this morning. She’s been very insistent that you needed to come here and talk to her. For some reason she claims you need to be punished for ruining her life.”

  When the detective looked at him with a question in his gaze, Peter shrugged, “We dated for a while and she’s had a hard time letting go.”

  “Has she ever threatened to harm herself or others in the past?”

  Peter shook his head, not giving voice to the memories that immediately sprang to his mind. The elevator opened, preventing him from having to vocalize his answer. He quickly stepped out, hurried through the open stairway door and crossed the roof until he reached several other police officers. He noticed that the officer at the cutout on her left leaned back and gestured him forward.

  “She’s growing more agitated by the minute. Are you the Peter she keeps asking for?”

  Peter nodded his head, and walked hesitantly towards the cutout. He glanced out the opening, realizing they stood on the tallest building in the surrounding area. He took another step towards the protective ledge and looked down, his stomach doing a nosedive before landing with a sickening thud. Closing his eyes, he attempted to thwart the vertigo and find a sense of calm in the face of this situation. This is not what he wanted! How could things get so completely out of control?

  When opening his eyes again, he silently hoped this was but a dream. But no, this nightmare was reality. He glanced down again and groaned; from up here he could see that the crowd of curious onlookers was much larger than he had originally realized and it increased by the minute. With a deep breath, he took the final step to the opening and gingerly leaned out so that he saw Lara.

  “Lara?” he questioned softly, not wanting to startle her and cause her to lose her balance.

  “You!” Lara started shouting accusations at him, screaming hysterically, and crying at the same time. Peter narrowed his eyes and tried to understand what she said, but her words were getting lost on the wind.

  Leaning even further out the window, he anchored himself with one hand on the top of the protective wall. He relaxed slightly when he sensed someone slide an anchor rope around his waist.

  “Lara, I can’t understand you. Come back inside the wall so we can sit down and discuss this. Please?” Peter extended his hand towards her and she took a shaky step away from him.

  The officer standing at the other opening made a calming motion with his hand and Peter pulled his hand back.

  Lara pointed her finger at him and screamed again, “You ruined my life! I truly loved you and you threw everything away just to be with that bitch Rachel!”

  This time Peter had no trouble hearing her or understanding what had her so upset. Peter started to answer angrily that she didn’t have any rights over him. That her constant flirting and cheating on him had made it impossible for him to continue in a relationship with her.

  He also wanted to tell her that Rachel was so different and that the relationship with Rachel was so much more fulfilling than the one he’d had with Lara.

  Peter was about to tell her all that and more. He opened his mouth, just to close it again as he tried to decide where to start first.

  But it seemed that the police psychologist was able to read his mind. She stepped forward, touching him lightly on the bicep to gain his attention. When he started to come back inside, she stopped him with a warning, “Don’t! I can see that you want to answer her accusations right now, but that is the wrong thing to do right now. Don't say anything negative. We need to make her retract from the edge of the building. Say ‘Yes’ to whatever she wants. You need to calm her down."

  Peter inwardly groaned; that was the exact opposite of what he really wanted to say. He took a deep breath and strove for a level voice as he answered her, “Y
es Lara. I understand. Please come inside so we can talk about all the things I did wrong."

  That last statement was hard to utter, but it gained her attention and she calmed slightly.

  Lara looked at him and then challenged him, "Promise to marry me, or I'll jump."

  Peter hesitated. He saw the hopeful light of victory in her eyes, but his heart balked at even pretending to say those words.

  Lara saw his hesitation and moved closer to the edge. The warning of the police psychologist echoed in his mind, “Do whatever she wants to try to calm her down.”

  What the heck! He swallowed his pride and pushed ahead. Above all other things he didn’t want to be responsible for Lara jumping. When realizing that telling her what she wanted to hear was the only way to get her away from the edge, he played along. “Yes. Everything you want."

  Lara watched him, trying to decide if he was being honest. Peter met her stare and slowly nodded, holding his hand out again while silently urging her to come back over the wall.

  She insisted, “Say it! Say you want to marry me!”

  It took him all of his self-control and willpower to subdue to her request and he finally murmured, “Lara, I want to marry you.”

  She smiled triumphantly but still wasn’t satisfied, “Louder! I can’t understand you!”

  Peter was about to leave and let her do whatever she chose to, but the police psychologist interfered again. She whispered at his back; “Please, you’re so close to getting her inside to safety”.

  Hoping that no one would ever remind him of his words he shouted, “Lara, I want to marry you.”

  She laughed and suddenly started crying. After several minutes of crying, Lara slowly calmed down and after a few more minutes, her sobbing stopped. She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, and stepped backwards, using her hands to locate the closest opening. Finally she sat down, straddling the concrete protective wall, pulled both legs to the inside and stood up.

  Peter pushed away from his opening and took a few steps towards the center of the roof, silently willing her to come towards him.

  Lara kept her eyes on him and slowly began to take the steps that would bring her to him. She focused completely on getting to Peter, that she didn’t see the two policemen waiting in the wings. As soon as she was a safe distance from the protective wall, two policemen jumped towards her, taking her to the rooftop as gently as possible and holding her in place.

  Peter watched as shock and surprise filled her gaze. It’s like she doesn’t even know where she is. He sighed with relief, but also suffered from a tremendous load of guilt for being the reason she had wanted to take her own life in the first place. Intellectually, he acknowledged that it was not his fault, but a small part of his psyche held onto the guilt.

  Detective Crimshaw reached Peter at the same time the paramedics arrived the rooftop, a gurney in tow. “Mr. Shaw, you did an excellent job. Thank you for your assistance.” He beckoned to a junior officer standing off to the side, “Officer Tompkins will be happy to drive you back home, or wherever else you’d like to go. We have the situation well under control now so there’s no reason for you to remain.”

  Peter heard the man’s words, but his attention focused on Lara who appeared to be suffering a complete nervous breakdown. Rather than the quiet, calm woman who had stepped back onto the roof, abandoning the ledge, there was now a woman lacking any self-control.

  Lara was shaking violently, so much so that she was unable to stand and had collapsed back to the rooftop from where the officers had just helped her stand to her feet. She sobbed uncontrollably with great big heaving sobs and struggling to draw enough breath into her lungs.

  The occupants of the roof were all surprised by the intensity of her shaking and crying. The police psychologist quickly rushed forward, giving her a sedative and instructing the two paramedics to escort her downstairs on the gurney.

  Peter saw how they lifted Lara to lie on the gurney and then strapped her down, high across her chest, once across her hips, and again across her ankles. “Why are they doing that?”

  The officer standing closest to him answered; “They’re making sure she can’t accidentally fall off the gurney. The straps will prevent her from hurting herself or others without being cognizant of the act. She’s pretty gone right now.”

  “I can see that. She looked so calm a few moments ago.”

  The police psychologist overheard his remark and stopped to answer, “Don’t worry, I see this quite a bit actually. Her sense of self-preservation was subdued while she stood on that ledge and let her emotions control her actions. Now that the danger is past, she is having a hard time reconciling what almost happened with all the negative emotions roiling through her body.”

  The psychologist handed Peter a card, “That’s the hospital I’m having her transported to. I’d give her at least a day or two before trying to contact her. The hospital will more than likely put her on a seventy-two hour hold anyway.”

  Peter took the card, pushing it into his front pocket absent-minded as he noticed his hands shake. He sensed the shakiness climb from his fingertips and into his chest until his entire body was shaking and his mind racing with “what ifs” and “whys.” It feels like I’m going crazy!

  The officer, who had been tasked with seeing him home, turned to him, asking, “Are you okay Mr. Shaw? Do you want us to take you to the hospital?”

  “No thank you. I’m fine. I just need to calm down. This was a lot of emotional shit to take in.” Peter turned, leaving the roof and then taking the stairs down. He would be fine once he hailed a taxi and got away from this place.

  That thought fueled his descent, but once on the main floor, he was still a mess. Rather than taking one of the many taxis waiting along the side street, he decided to walk. It was at least one hours walk to Rachel’s apartment, but he figured that the exercise was exactly what he needed to calm down and get his thoughts in order once again.

  Chapter 2

  For the tenth time in as many minutes, I wandered over to the window and looked out upon the street. No police car. No Peter.

  I wrapped my arms around myself and wandered through my apartment, picking up random objects and placing them back where they went. I made the bed, cleaned the bathroom, and scrubbed the kitchen floor. All the while, watching the hands on the big clock in the front room slowly rotate as time slipped by.

  God, where is he?! He’s been gone for hours! I tried to calm down, telling myself these things just take time, but my mind wasn’t buying into it. Thousands of thoughts crossed my mind. What if she jumps? What if she doesn’t? What if she convinces him to give her another chance? What if Peter struggles with her and falls? What if something happens? What if he gets arrested? What if ….

  There’s no answer to my questions and worries. The silence of the apartment, only broken by the ticking of the clock, has me wound tight and ready to explode in frustration. All I can do is wait!

  Finally, the doorbell rings and I rushed to answer it. Peter is back!

  Excitement and relief mixed when I looked out the peephole and confirmed - Yes it’s him!

  I threw open the door and pulled him inside. He looks exhausted. “Peter, are you okay?” I asked, concerned at the toll the last few hours seemed to have taken on him.

  Thank God, he’s safe! I pulled him into the foyer, shutting the door behind me and wrapped my arms around him; giving him comfort and calming myself down in the process. When I felt his arms wrap around me, I leaned up and kissed him gently on the lips.

  Peter hesitated only a fraction of a moment before he returned my kiss, but without any heat or attempt to deepen the contact.

  I broke the kiss, sliding back down so that my feet reached the ground again. The fingers of my left hand skimmed up his chest and shoulder to play with the hair that fell against the collar of his shirt.

  Peter looked down and met my eyes, but something had changed and he gave me a rueful grin before pulling m
e towards the living room. We sat down on the couch and Peter proceeded to tell me everything that had happened; at long last answering the questions I could no longer hold back.

  “Peter?”

  “Lara was indeed on top of the roof. Rachel, I was scared when I stepped out of that police car and saw her standing up there.”

  I reached over and took one of his hands, grateful when he squeezed mine in return.

  “They took me up to the roof and she started screaming at me that I had ruined her life by leaving her for you. What a horrible situation! She cried hysterically, and I was really afraid that if she didn’t intentionally jump, she was going to accidentally fall off during her tirade.”

  “But you’re here, so I’m assuming you were able to convince her to get off the ledge?” I asked, wanting to hear the answer, yet not.

  Peter sadly nodded, “The police psychologist warned me against challenging her accusations while she was on the ledge. She told me to agree to whatever she wanted. She told me to basically lie to her so that she’d come back to the safety of the rooftop inside the protective wall.”

  I was shocked, that didn’t sound good to me. Peter was honest to a fault. “What did you have to agree to?”

  Peter dropped his head, not able to meet my eyes and I realized that the entire situation had deeply affected him. “Peter? What did Lara want you to agree to?”

  He looked up and then slowly answered, “She made me promise to marry her.”

  I gasped in alarm. How could he promise to marry her?

  Peter must have seen the shock cross my face and, as if he could read my mind, told me, “Rachel, I really didn’t have a choice. The police warned me that she would jump at any response she didn’t like.”

  I swallowed hard and nodded. He had only done what the police psychologist advised him to. He didn’t really mean it. He couldn’t have. I scooted over and gave him a big hug. But this time his arms didn’t return the affection. Peter looked at me withdrawn. Distant. Something doesn’t feel right.